My night with Maud = ma nuit chez Maud

Episode of Series “Six contes moraux = Six moral tales”.
Jean Louis, a Catholic engineer smug in his acceptance of a Pascalian wager about faith, finds his beliefs challenged by an encounter with Maud, a free-thinking divorcee. She represents desire while Francoise - who he has observed from a distance at Mass - seems to represent, for him, a path to the attainment of grace. The ambiguous conflict between instinct and reason, nature and culture is worked through in this sharply observed comedy of manners, the third of Rohmer’s moral tales (filmed out of sequence), and set in a wintry Clermont-Ferrand. Although there are many ironic moments, Rohmer’s refusal to displace ambiguity with irony allows space for the viewer to find his/her own way through the thicket created between what is observed and the rationalisation of the narrator. Cast includes Jean-Louise Trintignant, Francoise Fabian, Marie-Christine Barrault and Antoine Vitez. In French with English subtitles.